As ever, the draw for league phase of this season’s UEFA Champions League is packed full of the biggest clubs on the planet.
From two-time defending champions Paris Saint-Germain to last season’s beaten finalists Arsenal, from record 15-time winners Real Madrid to their bitter LaLiga rivals Barcelona, the competition showcases the best of the best from across the continent.
But among the great and the good of European soccer are some less familiar names, and some that will be completely new to almost all fans around the world. Sabah FK from Azerbaijan, making their debut in the competition this season, fall into that category and have drawn Barcelona, Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund for their first-ever voyage at this level.
So, who are Sabah FK? How did they get the chance to go toe-to-toe with the biggest clubs in Europe. And what was their coach’s unique route to European football’s showpiece event?
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Here is what you need to know about them.
The club didn’t exist a decade ago
Sabah FK was only founded on Sept. 8, 2017, so the club’s first match in the Champions League proper may well fall on its ninth birthday. The team nicknamed The Owls hail from Masazir, around 20 miles north-west of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, with the Iranian border less than 200 miles south down the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Last season was a monumental one, not just for Sabah FK but for Azerbaijani football as a whole. Sabah won their first-ever Azerbaijan Premier League title, completing a double by lifting the Azerbaijan Cup, and in the process breaking Qarabağ’s grip at the top.
Baku-based Qarabağ had won 11 of the previous 12 league titles and last season became the first Azerbaijani club to reach the group or league phase of the Champions League, eventually losing to Newcastle United in the knockout phase playoffs.
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Fast-track to the elite
It has been a rapid rise for Sabah, but it all started in somewhat bizarre fashion.
They entered the league system in 2017-18 in the second tier, the Azerbaijan First League, and were promoted after one season despite the fact they finished fifth. The top four in the league — Khazar Baku, Qaradağ Lökbatan, Shuvalan and MOIK Baku — all failed to get the license needed to enter the top flight. Instead, the spot was given to Sabah, who never looked back.
The speed of Sabah’s rise, plus tricky and expensive travel routes from Azerbaijan, has resulted in a modest away following at times for European games. When Sabah arrived in Romania to play the first leg of their Champions League playoff against Israeli clubs Hapoel Be’er Sheva (held at a neutral venue for security reasons), they were greeted at the team hotel by one solitary ultra.
That hardy fan, who had ventured alone from Baku to Bucharest to greet his heroes and put on a one-man firework show complete with pink flares for the surprised players, was later able to celebrate a 5-2 victory for his team that won the tie 6-4 on aggregate and secure the club’s place in the Champions League league phase.
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🇦🇿✈️🇷🇴 One Sabah FK fan showed up at the team hotel in Romania for their Champions League playoff, and the players were completely caught off guard. As the squad walked out, they stopped, smiled, and applauded him for the unreal gesture.
Sabah FK are still a young club without… pic.twitter.com/YiJl0cWFsc
— Ultras Clips (@ultras_clips) August 21, 2026
Quiz show gave coach his break
The tactical mastermind for Sabah is Valdas Dambrauskas, the first Lithuanian to lead a club into the Champions League league phase.
The 49-year-old’s route to the top has been far from conventional. Dambrauskas never played football beyond the third tier in his homeland and retired at the age of 23, before he embarked on a coaching career. His life changed in 2002 when he appeared on “Šeši nuliai – milijonas,” the Lithuanian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Dambrauskas won 4,000 litas — around $1,300 — which he used to move to London where he earned his coaching badges while working various jobs, including delivering newspapers and childminding.
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It was in England that Dambrauskas started his managerial career with Kingsbury London Tigers FC in the Spartan South Midlands Football League Premier Division — the ninth tier. He led the club to its highest-ever finish, the first step of a career that saw him land a domestic quadruple with FK Žalgiris in his homeland, win the Bulgarian league with Ludogorets and lift domestic cups in Latvia with RFS and Croatia with Hajduk Split before joining Sabah in 2025.
First team in pink
Sabah are the first team with pink as one of their main home kit colours to reach the group stage of the Champions League. Although they have opted to stick with a largely black shirt with pink accents for four consecutive seasons, the club’s distinctive badge is equally pink and black, and the team’s nickname is Qara-çəhrayılar (Pink-Blacks.)
The Azerbaijani champions used to play in blue and white before changing their colours in 2023-24. Pink is important to Sabah’s hometown as its famous Lake Masazir is known for its distinctive pink colouring.
Four-time underdogs
At no stage in Sabah’s run to the league phase were they favourites to progress.
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Sabah were unseeded in each of their matches against Welsh champions The New Saints, Finland’s KuPS, AGF Aarhus from Denmark and Hapoel Beer-Sheva of Israel.
The crucial playoff round win over Hapoel Beer-Sheva was a real nail-biter. Sabah needed a 94th-minute goal in the second leg to keep their European dream alive and take the tie to extra-time, eventually adding two extra-time goals to secure their spot.
Very few teams have managed to get through four games to reach the group or league stage of the Champions League. Only Kazahstan’s Kairat (2025-26), Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia (2024-25), Moldovan side Sheriff (2021-22), Sweden’s Malmö (2021-22), Ferencvaros of Hungary (2020-21) and Serbian club Red Star Belgrade (2018-19 and 2019-20) have managed such an arduous path to the big time before Sabah.
